


The red line, a noose, a scrawled heart.

by anonymousAlchemist



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, Red String of Fate AU, and julia is magnus's soulmate, erasing your best beloved's memories is hard, its complicated, scenes from a complicated world, the one where lucretia is magnus's soulmate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-14
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-17 03:18:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12356355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymousAlchemist/pseuds/anonymousAlchemist
Summary: Research has proven that soulbonds break when one, or either or the connected individuals change so profoundly that the relationship is no longer viable. Or when one of the two individuals are dead.Madame Director still has a red string stretching toward Raven's Roost. It tugs at her pinky every so often. She tries to ignore it.





	The red line, a noose, a scrawled heart.

**Author's Note:**

> the one where lucretia is magnus's soulmate and erases his memories anyway.  
> the one where magnus enters the moonbase and sees that madame director is his soulmate.  
> it's complicated.

Research has proven that soulbonds break when one, or either or the connected individuals change so profoundly that the relationship is no longer viable. Or when one of the two individuals are dead.  
  
Madame Director still has a red string stretching toward Raven's Roost. It tugs at her pinky every so often. She tries to ignore it.  
  
Once it pulls so strongly that it nearly pops her finger out of her socket. "Oh," she gasps. Lucretia is in a meeting with some of the other employees, and they stare at her.  
  
"Is something wrong? Oh, your soulbound," Brad exclaims. "You should go, Madam Director."  
"No," Lucretia says, pulling it back with gritted teeth. Her finger hurts something fierce. "No, it's not important."  
  
The next day she learns of the fire that destroyed parts of Raven's Roost.  
  
She doesn't go find Magnus. He has to be okay, their string hasn't snapped. And Julia must be with him, surely. 

  
# 

  
This is how they meet for the second time. Magnus rushes into her office, hand outstretched. He stops when he sees her. Confusion, wonder.  
  
"Why do you — " Magnus says. She cuts him off.  
  
"Welcome to the Bureau of Balance," she announces, and smiles the smile she's perfected over the year. The distant one, the one that does not reach her eyes.

  
  
# 

  
The first time they met during IPRE orientation. Lucretia had been sitting in the back of the room, reading a book. She was early. She had glanced up every time the door opened, curious about the other recruits.  
  
Then Magnus walked in. Lucretia's first impression of Magnus was size. Not just height, or width, but the way he walked, like he owned the world and it could never hurt him. He had looked down at his hand, and then at where Lucretia was sitting.  
  
"You!" Magnus had exclaimed, pointing at her with his index finger, the thin red line that looped from his hand to hers clearly visible. "You're my soulmate! I'm Magnus! Hi!"  
  
"Hello," Lucretia had said, startled into honesty. "I'm Lucretia. Oh, hot diggity fuck, hi, you're really tall, I didn't think this is how we'd meet. Hello, I'm so happy to meet you?"  
  
"I'm going to love you," Magnus had said, like it was revelation. "I'm going to be in love with you, and I'm so fucking happy to meet you too. Will you get dinner with me after this? Can I sit next to you?"  
  
"Yes," Lucretia had said, and the length of the thread between them was reduced to almost nothing.

  
  
# 

  
Lucretia thought their soulbond would break when she erased Magnus's memories. She thought that would be enough, but even as she lowered him to the floor and whispered apology and reassurance, the red string didn't fray.  
  
She tries to break it manually, a couple of times. Everyone knows the rumors of the right snip at the right time, enchanted scissors or knives coated in the right magical solvent.  
  
Nothing works.  
  
The last time she tries is three months after founding the Bureau. Her soulbond reaches downwards now, and she's been thinking about Magnus a lot, lately. She hopes he's alright. It's been a while since she's checked on him. She misses him, but she always misses him. Their string has been particularly slack lately, she thinks he's probably doing alright then. It's good. He doesn't need her.  
  
He doesn't need the complications from an extra soul bond. He doesn't need to be wondering about the red line streaking toward the sky.  
  
The last team of seekers had brought back a pair of scissors made of some sort of crystal, although they hadn't located any more relics. Lucas had confirmed that the scissors were probably some sort of enchantment, something that made them sharper than usual. They can slice through rock, through wood, through metal.  
  
They should be able to break string.  
  
Lucretia walks over to the storage warehouse, and takes them with her back to her office. She sits in the nice chair she had bought herself as a starting-the-organization gift, stretches the soulbond out in front of her, and breathes deeply. She slips one blade underneath the string. Okay. For real, this time. She's letting Magnus go.  
  
She closes the scissors. When she opens them, the string is unbroken.  
  
"Fuck!" she exclaims. "No, that should have worked!"  
  
She snaps them shut again, and again, and again. The string doesn't fray.  
  
"Come on," she says. "Come on! Just break, already! What do I have to do?!"  
  
Snik. Snik. Snik. Nothing. Just as whole as the day they met, no matter how frantically she cuts. A bead of sweat rolls down the side of her face. She's breathing heavily.  
  
"Davenport?"  
  
She looks up. The gnome is standing in the doorway. She forgot to lock her door. Lucretia cringes back.  
  
"Oh, Davenport I was just—" she says. "I was just trying to—"  
  
He pins her with a glare. She stops talking. He walks over to her desk, looks at the stretched out string trailing into the hallway, the scissors loosely grasped in her left hand, the expression of abject misery on her face. His expression softens. He pulls the scissors out of her loose fingers.  
  
Davenport takes the scissors from her and puts them in the breast pocket of his shirt. He takes her hand and folds it into a soft fist, the red string tucked in the middle, reaching outward.  
  
"No," he says, holding her hand in his smaller ones. She can see the frayed edges of his strings. Those are her fault.  
"Okay," she says, her face crumpling. "Okay."  


#

 

Magnus has a second string that stretches toward the sky.

“It doesn’t bother you?” he asks her on their third date. They haven’t talked about it, really. Second soulmates are assumed to be forfeit — the first person you find is the person who you stay with. Monogomy is the cultural rule of the day. The fact that Magnus has two strings — one of each index finger, that’s supposed to be politely disregarded.

“Well, it’s proof that there are other people up there,” Lucretia says.

“You know what I mean, Luce,” Magnus says, brow furrowing. “If I find them, I don’t know if I can just, _not_ , love them. I know it’s what you’re supposed to do. But if I feel this way about you, then _them_ …” he says, trailing off. She cups his face in his hands.  

Lucretia, when she was younger, when her and her friends talked about soulbonds and soulmates and what they’d feel like, if they had a soulmate who already had a second soulmate. It’s a common trope in romcoms, sad romance movies, love triangles. Lucretia had worried about what she would do, if her soulmate had another soulmate. But now, it seems only natural that Magnus would have another soulmate, that there would be someone else out there for him to love. It’s a good feeling, she realizes. Desire for your lover’s happiness, security that the two of you are together even if another person enters the equation. Fuck what society dictates.

“I hope they love you just as much as I love you,” Lucretia says. He has such a big heart. She wants everyone to love him. “I hope we find them, whoever they are, out there.”

  
#

 

Magnus corners her as she’s walking out of his office. Lucretia braces herself for a difficult conversation. She knew he wouldn’t let this go.

“You’re my soulmate,” he says, voice as full of wonder as the first first time they met.

“It’s not relevant, Magnus,” she says, gently, a soft letdown. “I’m your boss. That comes first.” He shakes his head.

“Please,” he says. “One date. Just let me try. We’re supposed to be —”

She cuts him off, walks faster. He matches her pace.

“We’re not supposed to be anything.”

“Well, I think this—” he gestures to the string between them. “suggests otherwise.”

“It doesn’t have to mean anything, Magnus,” she says.  

“My wife died,” he says bluntly. “And the only thing that kept me going after that, the only thing that stopped me from following her, was the thought that maybe someone out there needed me, who would be just as devastated as I was when my string snapped. I know it’s selfish, but please. Let me take you out to dinner.”  

Lucretia looks down at his hands. One index finger has a loop of red thread leading to her pinky. The other has a ragged string, still vibrantly crimson, broken near the end. The last time she saw him, both were intact. She thought she was leaving him with his other soulmate, leaving him happy. She looks back at his face. Earnest. Handsome. More scars than she remembers, and she wants to smooth away the furrow in his brow.

“One date,” she says, and her heart aches as she watches delight illuminate his features.

 

#

 

Lucretia has only seen Julia a single time.

Before erasing Magnus’s memories, Lucretia had arranged for an apartment, a workshop. She didn’t know that Magnus’s second soulmate would be in Raven’s Roost as well.

She led Magnus to the workshop. He pliantly followed her off the cart and to the doorway of his new home. He would be happy here, she knew.

Julia had looked down at the strings, and over at Magnus, who was still turned away from the two of them.

“You’re his—” Julia had started, before Lucretia cut her off.

“Take care of him,” Lucretia had said, and she hadn’t recognized the desperation in her voice. “I love him like life itself. He’s the best man you’ll meet. Please, I can’t stay, but I’m so glad you found him.”

“Why—” Julia had said, but stopped herself, something in the way Lucretia was staring at her catching the question in her mouth. “Okay. Thank you.”

“I’m so glad he’ll have you,” Lucretia said, and then turned and ran, before she spilled any more secrets, suggested anything else incriminating.

And from the covered cart, she saw the beautiful woman walk up to Magnus and tap him on the shoulder. He turned to the beautiful woman and looked down at their hands, and looked up at her face, and they had stared at each other for a long moment, and he had swept her in his arms.

 Lucretia did not weep. She was so happy for Magnus. She hoped Magnus and Julia would be happy together. It was the best she could ask for.

 

#

 

They go to a restaurant in Neverwinter for their second first date. Lucretia had insisted on leaving the moonbase, to avoid the employee gossip. She’s in charge of the whole damn place. She’s got to seem somewhat professional. It’s a nice restaurant, nicer than their first first date, which had taken place in a local chain restaurant, where they had spent the entire time staring at each other and smiling instead of eating.

Lucretia orders a bottle of wine. She’s going to need it, to get through the night. 

“Have you been here before?” Magnus asks. Lucretia shakes her head.

“No, I don’t leave the moonbase, much,” she admits.

“Why not?” Magnus asks.

“Too much to do,” Lucretia says. He pours wine for each of them. “Thank you,” Lucretia nods. Magnus sets the wine on the table. He looks her square in the eyes. Lucretia stiffens. This is the ‘Magnus wants to have a serious conversation’ face. She knows it well.

“Why are you so against the idea of us being together? There has to be more than just ‘I’m your boss, Magnus’,” he says. "We're soulmates, Madame Director." Lucretia smiles a little at his impression of her voice. She looks down at her glass of wine, and tells a half-truth.

“I am going to make the three of you do such hard things,” she says. “And I’m never going to know if you’re going to come back. I can’t be _biased_. I won’t be able to do my job, if I’m worrying about you.”

Hypocrite, Lucretia thinks to herself. As if she’s done anything but worry about them, since they joined. As if she’s done anything without a knot of concern in her chest for him, this past century. She looks down at her hands. Careworn. Older. Same slip of red thread on her pinky.

“Okay,” Magnus says simply. Lucretia looks at him incredulously.

“Okay?” she says. “You’re not going to try and convince me that I’m making a mistake? That I’m being too harsh? Too cold?” The wine is getting to her. Magnus shakes his head.

“I’m not. What you said makes sense,” Magnus says. “You’re right. If we’re in a relationship, it’s going to make it harder for you to do your job, and you’re trying to protect the world. I can’t get mad at you about that.”

He leans over the table, touches her cheek like she might disappear, taking a liberty that she has not yet approved, that she approved lifetimes ago. He smiles at her crookedly. 

“But after the relics are all destroyed, then, well,” he says, the suggestion trailing off into implication. “I’m going to ask again. I’ll be whatever you want me to be, for you.” 

It’s astonishing, she thinks. How little someone can change. Her heart hurts. She wants to tell him that she wants him to be everything for her, for her to be everything to him, that she’s still here, he’s still got her.

“After,” she says, and the lie slips off her tongue like nothing. As if he’s going to want anything to do with her, after she gives him his memories back.

The waiter comes, and brings out their entrees. It’s the best dinner Lucretia’s had in years. If she stops thinking, she can pretend it’s any of their date nights on the myriad worlds they landed on over the course of a century.

 

#

 

“Well, he’s not dead, at least,” Merle says, when they come back from Wonderland, sans Magnus. “The string would have broken.”

“Where is he?” Lucretia asks, from across her desk. If he’s not on the moonbase, the red line should lead toward the ground. But it doesn’t.

“Trust us,” Taako says. “We got this handled. He’s fine. He’s just… late. It’s a long story! We’ll explain it to you later, Lucre—Madame Director. It’s a very interesting narrative that I don’t have time to get into right now, but he’s totally fine, and also totally not here right now.”

Taako is lying. That much is obvious. He’s always been a terrible liar, without his sister to misdirect or back him up. But. He’s smiling at her, and he seems genuine about Magnus being okay.

She trusts them.

“Alright,” Lucretia says. “But I expect a full explanation later. Good job, you two.”

 

#  


“I love you, it’ll be over soon,” Lucretia babbles, and she’s crying. Behind them, Fisher consumes her diary.

“Who are you?” Magnus asks, reaching for her face with his hand. She takes it in hers as she lowers him to the floor. 

“I love you, I love you so much,” she says, as his eyes unfocus. It’s vitally important to her now, that he ends this life and starts his new one knowing that he is loved.

The red line between them, reduced to the barest inch of string.

 

#

  
They talk, after.  
  
"It never broke," Magnus says. "Not like Cap'nport's did?"    
"No, it didn't," Lucretia confirms. "I tried to break it," she says in a rush. "I didn't want you looking for me, and I thought that maybe if I broke our bond, it would be easier for you. You had Julia, anyway."  
  
She can't be anything but honest, now. She owes him that much. He frowns.  
  
"I'm. Really mad at you, you know that? Like, really mad."  
"You should be," Lucretia cuts in. She knows the hug before they went off to fight the Hunger was an unasked for, undeserved gift. "What I did was awful, I took away everything that mattered to you, I —"  
  
Magnus cuts in, shaking his head.  
  
"No, let me finish, Luce. I'm really mad at you. But I am so, so glad you didn't manage to cut it," he says, taking her hand in his and tracing the red line that connects his index finger to her pinky."  
"You don't have to say that," Lucretia says, even as she curls her fingers around his. Magnus scoffs.  
"When have you known me to ever say anything I didn't want to say? I'm super pissed. I know you were just trying to protect us. I love you."  
"I love you too," Lucretia says, and then, as if to justify herself, "It was never about not loving you, I need you to know that, I never stopped loving you, I just wanted you to be safe, Magnus."  
"I know, Luce," Magnus says.  
"Are we still," Lucretia says, and can not finish the rest of the sentence.  
  
Magnus kisses her.

**Author's Note:**

> liner notes @[here](http://anonymousalchemist.tumblr.com/post/166392296967/the-red-line-a-noose-a-scrawled-heart-liner) love yall, thanks for reading! 
> 
> talk taz with me @[anonymousalchemist](http://anonymousalchemist.tumblr.com/)


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